USA > Illinois > DeKalb County > Past and present of DeKalb County, Illinois, Volume I > Part 1
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DeKalb County !!
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Past and Present OF
DeKalb County, Illinois
By Prof. Lewis M. Gross
Assisted by an Advisory Board consisting of H. W: Fay, G. E. Congdon, F. W. Lowman and Judge C. A. Bishop
VOLUME I
1
ILLUSTRATED WITH HISTORIC VIEWS
CHICAGO: THE PIONEER PUBLISHING COMPANY 1907
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THE . F. ORK PUBLI ... RARY 536197 ASTOR. LENOX AND TILDEN F NDATIONS.
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1912
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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.
HISTORICAL
INTRODUCTION.
The history of DeKalb county is the story of this little segment of our country and concerns the people particularly that live in this territorial unit thirty-six miles long and eighteen miles wide.
We are proud of the achievements of the men and women who were our worthy forebears and pion- eers who, by dint of courage and personal sacri- fice, made this little area we now call DeKalb county to "blossom as the rose" and give us a por- tion of that heroism that makes us even as good as we are. The task we assume, to record the deeds of our pioneers whom we knew face to face and learned from them their interesting story, is a pleasant one, but not so easy as we first thought. To sit down and talk with the few who still remain of that few who left the old eastern home between 1835 and 1845 to settle here is pleasant indeed, but to connect those incidents and make a complete story is quite a different thing.
Our history seems readily to divide itself into two periods : Before and after the Civil war. This is done by common consent. "Were you born be- fore the war?" is a question often asked of the middle aged male population. If an old settler, the question is: "Did you settle here before the war?" It is an appropriate division of the seventy- two years that covers the time since our first per- manent settler, Jack Sebree, of Virginia, raised his log cabin on the banks of Little Rock creek in what is now Squaw Grove township, in the fall of 1834. for in those years from '61 to '65 our coun-
ty made her supreme effort in the gift of two thousand five hundred of her stalwart sons to the "government of the people, by the people and for the people that was not to perish from the earth."
It is the period "before the war" with which we wish to concern ourselves, and it is of course more difficult to gather data for this period be- cause we know it second hand. We will more readily see the difficult nature of our task when we know how few records were kept, and even those preserved are fragmentary. Like many other men of meritorious achievements our progenitors did not seem to think their actions worthy of recor I, so that the whole amount of material gathered is really an infinitesimal portion of what really did occur.
Before 1840 not one family in ten took a peri- odical regularly. Fortunate, indeed, was the fam- ily that had a weekly paper, and that was read and passed to the neighbors not so fortunately situated until it was unreadable : and it is further to be de- plored that matters of local interest were not re- corded, but the papers of a half century ago were full of foreign news that did not reach our county until it had many months before passed into history, while even matters pertaining to our na- tional affairs were of secondary interest to the pub- licist.
To secure good pictures of buildings, such as first homes of our earliest settlers, our first school houses and places of worship, the old mills that were once numerous and furnished lumber and
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
flour, and also of our early settlers, has been very unsatisfactory. Photography was unknown to our first pioneers and the daguerreotype was expensive; and added to all this there were many old people who thought it wicked to have their pictures taken. So superstition played a large part in preventing us the pleasure of looking upon likenesses that would now give us such pleasure.
To give a work of this kind to our satisfaction would take at least one year, but these few facts have been gathered in my more than two score years of existence with no intention, until last December, of putting them in book form, so with apologies above offered we dedicate this imperfect work to our sturdy pioneers.
The Civil war changed former political alliance and broke political parties into fragments so that when the war closed political discussions were founded upon questions born of that trying period.
It seems strange now in contemplating our county's history to see how different political ele- ments and governmental ideas were represented in our earliest settlements. The earliest settlers canie from the southern and central portions of our state in large numbers with ideas of the southern civil- ization predominant, and while the New England- or was present with those of the middle states who sprang from the Puritans, still the southern ideas are pre-eminent and show themselves in the county as the unit of government while the old demo- cratic party of before the war was the predominant party and held control until 1856. By that time the eastern emigrant representing the civilization of Plymouth Rock supplanted the political ideas of the civilization of Jamestown and the New England township becomes the unit of government and the republican party whose cardinal principles were opposition to slavery extension which in time and the domiciling of every man in his own home and on his own farm. checked the extension of slave territory. Every change of location exerts a more telling effect than one thinks at a percursory glance. The men from the northeast portion of our country did not at once affiliate harmoniously with the men from the south-land, but common dangers. common interests draw men close in a common bond of sympathy. and in the second gen- eration they are one in association, their children intermarry and racial, social and religious differ- ences disappear. We can readily recall instances
where children of Knights of the Golden Circle married those of the most stanch abolitionist, and denominational rancor cannot withstand the in- roads of the American social life as exemplified in America.
EARLY CONDITIONS.
When the white people first came to the terri- tory now known as DeKalb county they found an unbroken wilderness consisting mostly of prairie which embraced all that part of Franklin south of the Kishwaukee and a little of the north eentral part of the town, all of Kingston township south and west of the Kishwaukee except sections 1, 2. 3. 4. 11 and 12; that part of Genoa township ex- cept sections 18, 19, 30, 31, 32, and a part of 29; all of Sycamore except part of sections 2, 10, 11, and parts of 12 and 14; all of Mayfield west of the Kishwaukee except a fringe of wood along its west bank : South Grove was mostly prairie except parts of sections 10, 11. 14. 15 and 23: Malta township had no timber; DeKalb's prairie land covered all its territory except along the banks of the Kish- waukee: Cortland had timber on section 28 and sections 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and part of 15, part of 23 and all of 21; Pierce had one small grove on section 22; Afton and Milan were all prairie ; Shabbona except Shabbona Grove on sections 23, 24, 25, 26 and 21. Paw Paw had two groves, one on sections 2, 18 and 19: Ross Grove on sections 10, 11, 14. 15 and 22; Victor had no timber, while Somonank was covered along the banks of Somon- ank creek on either side with a large area of for- est and more than any other town in our county has retained her original woods; Clinton had one small grove which has beeome historic because for many years in this pretty grove have been held the Old Settlers' Picnics. Squaw Grove and Papoose Grove in Squaw Grove township covered what is now Hinckley and the woods on section 30 and 31 Squaw Grove township are a continnation of the Somonauk timber belt. These groves and tracts of timber are of special interest to us as they were, except in one instance, Lost Grove on section 28, Cortland, found near the running streams of water, and wood and water being the mainstay of the pioneers, they made their earliest homes in the woods which furnished wild game in abund- ance, and the streams supplied excellent varieties of fish. Nearly every pioneer was an expert with
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
the muzzle loading rifle and an adept with the anglers tools.
Many settlers who came in the '50's thought it unwise to locate so far from the timber and creeks, and as late as 1856 Judge Hill, Nicholas Saum and others from Kingston, while attending a re- ligious service at the Vandeburg school house in Mayfield. thought that ultimately that portion of the prairie so far from wood and water would again be a common.
They lived long enough to see their dreams vari- ish, for in the early '70s farmers began to sink tubular wells which are now indispensable to every farm, and about the same time the hard coal base- burner solved, in a great degree, the fuel problem, and today first class farms are original trecless wastes.
In the middle 'GOs one of our county newspapers wrote a description of a sample of anthracite coal, but speaks of its cost preventing its general use. All the wood consumed in our county in 1906 would not pay one-fifth of the county's hard coal bill. It is to be regretted, however, that there was such a waste of timber in our earlier years, for it would serve a valuable purpose as a reservoir of water and be used profitably in our domestic af- fairs.
There were eight saw mills along the Kishwau- kee in the carly '40s. One south of the old town of Coltonville, Comb's mill built by William A. Miller, Miller's mill on the I. L. Ellwood farm. Kingston; Gleason's mill just in the east edge of Kingston, Gault's mill near the east line of A. J. Lettow's farm in Kingston ; Lee's two mills, one on the north side of the river, and one on the south side of the river near the mouth of Lee's slough : Welty's mill on section 24 near the east line of Franklin and Hicks' mill just east of the Hicks' mill bridge. All these mills except Welty's and Comb's mills were sawmills, and at an early period Comb's mill served the double purpose. To- day they are all gone; of most of them but few traces remain.
Many of the houses and barns of forty years ago were built of hard wood sawed at these mills, and in many instances will outlast the buildings erected during these recent years. Until the St. Charles mill was built about 1840, and the Big Thunder mill at Belvidere about the same time, our pioneers went to mill at Ottawa.
The Indian, while often hostile and the most fatal foe of advancing civilization, taught our pioneers many valuable lessons in these far-off out- post of our country. From him they learned the habits of the game in wood and stream and prairie ; they adopted his mode of dress and in these early homes were the household utensils com- mon to the red men, such as the mortar and pestle for grinding corn, the stone skinning knife and the bone fish-hook.
The earliest permanent settlers in Jamestown colony died by thousands before they could main- tain a self-supporting community, for they stub- bornly tried to maintain European customs, while our forefathers in the Mississippi valley by adopt- ing Indian habits, generally supplied the absolute necessities of life.
It was Charles Francis Hall, an Arctic naviga- ter, that revolutionized the methods of the seekers for the North Pole. When he planned his expedi- tion he pursued the theory "that a white man could live where a savage maintained an exisl- ence." Francis Parkman, our ablest and most ac- curate historian, in describing the white hunter and trapper who led civilization the way into the wilderness, bears strong testimony to the fact that a child of civilization upon adopting the manners and customs of savagery and living with savages. never again willingly returns to civilization. The children captured by Indians were with difficulty induced to return to their homes, and in many in- stances went back to the homes of the red men. An Indian girl will attend the schools of the whites, graduate at college, but on returning to her Indian home when the tom tom is sounded for the Indian dance, will cast off the habiliments of civilization, don her blanket, paint her face and obey the call of the wild as did her ancestors before the advent of Columbus.
DeKalb county is a part of northern Illinois that formerly was a part of Quisconsin ( Wiscon- sin) but by a political stratagem played by Na- thaniel Pope, our territorial delegate at the time of admission into the Union in 1818. fifty-one miles of the northern portion of what is now Illinois was added to our area, and Wisconsin thus lost a fertile portion of the state and the metropolis of the Mis- sissippi valley-Chicago.
In the British Museum, London, is found a rude diagram of the Illinois country, made by Captain
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
Philip Pittman in 1270, and is described as fol- lows: "The country of the Illinois is bounded on the west by the River Mississippi, by the River Illinois on the north. by the Oubache (Wabash) and Miainas on the south," and the eastern border is indefinite. The boundary on the north as made by Nathaniel Pope became the 42-30' parallel of latitude. All our county except the four south townships and the three south rows of sections of Squaw Grove. Clinton and Shabbona was formerly a part of the Wisconsin territory. What an amount of good energy might have been saved for us in "County seat delirium" if the northern line of our state was at present running nine miles north of the south line of our county.
The effect of this "land grab" from the unor- ganized territory of Wisconsin can scarcely be es- timated unless we take a backward look into our history : The position of Illinois in national poli- ties often turned the tide in the control of na- tional affairs. The anti-slavery cause would have been hindered materially had not Illinois east her strength on that side of the question and her posi- tion was determined by her fourteen northern counties. In 1826 had Ilinois not had those fifty- two miles that rightfully belonged to Wisconsin included in her area. Tilden and not Hayes would have been honored by the chief magistraey of our republic. This portion was settled by people from New England and from those states in the middle east that were settled by New Englanders and in- herited from her ideas, themselves moulded by the Plymouth Rock civilization. Without the four- teen counties in this fifty-one miles of Illinois territory Abraham Lincoln could not have carried Illinois, and without such strength in his own state. he could not have secured the nomination in 1860.
Diek Oglesby, Cullom. Fifer and other repub- lican candidates for gubernatorial honors would have failed to reach the coveted prize and our state would have been a more uncertain political quan- tity than either Indiana or New York.
Gallant Dick Oglesby in an address delivered in DeKalb in 1894, said: "During the days of civil strife when the national and state administrations needed the approval of the people and adverse judgment was pouring in upon us from counties in the southern part of Illinois, how we looked to
the northern counties to throw their power and influence in the balance and they never deserted us."
INDIANS.
Indian life in DeKalb county was well known to early settlers, and from 1835 to 1837 they were friendly to the whites and in many instances were of great assistance to the pioneer. The Indians in this locality were summoned to Fort Dearborn, then standing in the city of Chicago, where ar- rangements were made to remove the red men io the west of the Mississippi river and upon their removal. 1837-Fort Dearborn was evaenated by national troops, was used as a storehouse and soon fell into decay, while today upon its site stands W. M. Hoyt's wholesale grocery and one must draw strongly upon his imagination to even fancy the spot was ever used to hold back the savage from destroying. or better, retarding the westward march of civilization.
Among those of our citizens that were employed by Uncle Sam to remove the Indian were Norman Peters and Evans Wharry. After 183; they had no regularly established homes, except at Shabbona Grove, and even at this place they would not be found for months at a time, and at one time re- mained in the west for three years.
Indian axes, skinning knives, pestles for grind- ing eorn. pipes, spear heads. arrow heads, etc .. are found even at this late date. From Indian graves on Stuart's farm cast of the village of Kingston have been taken many of the above named utensils. Early settlers of Kingston and Coltonville found dead papooses wrapped in bark and suspended among the limbs of large forest trees.
While taking gravel from a pit on the Norton farm, Shahbona. the skeleton of an Indian youth. presmuably a child of Shabbona, was unearthed, and on the J. Y. Stuart farm about twenty-two years ago in a gravel pit some parties working out their poll tax found the skeleton of an aged En- dian, while in 1889 just north of the Kirkland bridge, in a gravel bed. was found a skeleton, the skull of which had been utilized by a gopher for a nest where the young were reared.
From these ineidents we assume that they did not always use regular burial places, but to this day there are several Indian gravevards that are
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
well known to a few people, notably one in Shab- bona Grove, two in Kingston, one in Franklin and one in DeKalb township on the Adee farm.
When the little tribe in Cortland left their grove on section 3 an old chief refused to leave the graves of his fathers and a rude log cabin was built for him and provision left him, but a few months later his white neighbors found him lifeless in his hut. The site of this eabin is pointed out today by the owner of the farm. In 1867 some Pot- tawattomies, former residents, were making a visit to their old homes and while north of Sandwich an Indian buck got into trouble with his drunken mother-in-law and in self-defense sent her to the "happy hunting grounds." He was in prison at Sycamore for some months and upon being a "good Indian" while "in durance vile" was given his liberty.
The Indian was possessed with endurance, would in the seasons of scarcity of game go for weeks without being properly fed, but as an athlete in exercises that required muscular exertion, such as wrestling, he was not a success.
An incident that took place in Sycamore in the later '30s illustrates this fact. Uncle "Ide" Fair- elo, a great wrestler, but a man small of stature engaged frequently in such contests, and on this occasion after he had thrown "the bully" the In- dians were induced to try their innsele on Unele Ide. He could throw an Indian as fast as he could get up much to the amusement of the whites and the Indians themselves.
They had an orehard at Coltonville and corn- fields at different places which were cared for by the women. The latter were slovenly housekeepers and poor nurses and a high rate of mortality ex- isted among the infants especially.
Early settlers have seen them eat their game raw and have witnessed their culinary skill. They cooked game whole and undressed. If it chaneed to be a wild fowl no feathers were removed not was it drawn, but placed whole in the ashes. Such a menu was offered to Jack Sebree onee. when eall- ing upon his Indian neighbors. Their hominy was, however, quite palatable.
The numerous collections of Indian relics now in private and public collections do not pertain so much to the Indian known to our first settlers for their implements of war, hunting and those of their simple domestic arts were generally those
of the whites. No bows and arrows were used by them in the Black Hawk war of 1832.
Most of these relics are at least two centuries old, and men who have given much time and study to the Indian manners and customs believe them to be many centuries old. They had adopted many ideas of the white people, wore clothing of the whites and wore but few garments make of skins of animals.
The Indian of our pioneer days had degenerated to a great extent, were in many instances petty thieves, and when liquor was obtainable would get drunk very often. He would sell anything to get "fire water," and one was known to have offered his child for a bottle of whiskey, and his love for drink contributed largely towards his degeneracy.
In this county the Indians used ponies and were constantly on the move, and Shabbona and his tribe were known in all parts of our county. Men of three score years and upwards while boys in school remember of the tribe in their wanderings and school was dismissed so that the pupils might see the old chief, for he was respected and gener- ally treated with kindness for his great service to the whites in rescuing many from the savages of Black Hawk. His prominence gives him conspieu- ous place in the story of our county, and as he was the high type of the "good Indian" we have de- voted much space to him; and let us remember this as a striking relief from the bloody tale told since the days of Columbus to our own time.
THE INDIAN CHIEF SHABBONA.
BY PROF. L. A. HATCH.
The Indians have gone from Illinois, but there are many people living today who remember hav- ing seen the last of this dusky race as it disappear- ed. With them have gone, never to return, many of the primitive conditions that once existed. It is with difficulty that the present generation re- constructs in image form and scenes and condi- tions that met those who first came to this land as explorers or founders of homes. Fortunately we have with us a few of the early pioneers from whose lips we may gather a few of the fragments of our early history. These should be collected and retained as a part of our national heritage. It will give us strength to look back upon those early days and to recount the struggles through which we have come.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
The conflicts which took place between the red man and the early white settlers would make a long story were all told. Were we to write this story the name of Shabbona would appear in many places. Were you to read it you would come to love the man and to respect him for the true man- hood that he displayed on so many occasions. Were you to go to the early settlers who knew Shab- bona you would find them all agreed as to the no- bility of his character. He was known by them all as "The Friend of the White Man." The writer will tell the story as he gathered it from those who knew him, and from other sources that will be in- dicated at the close of this article.
In the southern part of DeKalb county. Illinois, is found a small village that has been named after Shabbona. Not far from this village is to be found à grove known as Shabbona Grove. It was at this grove that Shabbona and his people made their home for many years. Those who live at the grove take pleasure in pointing out the spot where he pitched his wigwam. It was a beautiful place in those early days nestled on the banks of a little stream. It was a small clearing in the wood well protected from the storms that raged during the winter. In the early years of his stay at this grove it was the home of his whole tribe. which by the way never numbered more than one hundred and thirty souls. After the government moved the In- dians from Illinois. Shabbona and his family lived here for a number of years. A hollow in the ground marks the place where he had a shallow well from which he obtained water. A few mounds mark the resting place of a number of his family.
You are told that a honse was built for the old chief by the white settlers who thought they would show their appreciation for him in this way. This house was made of logs. He never lived in it. so some who knew him say, but instead used it as a shelter for his ponies and a storehouse for his pro- visions. At times some of the younger Indians of the tribe used this cabin as a place of shelter but old Shabbona and Coconoko, his wife, always pre- ferred to live in the tent even during the coldest weather in winter. As he visited his white friends it was almost impossible to get him to sleep over night in a house. He preferred to roll up in his blanket and sleep out of doors. By his association with the whites he acquired much from them but
there were many Indian traits and customs that he retained as long as he lived.
At one time the grove at which he made his home was one of the finest in the state of Illinois. It covered an area of fifteen hundred acres. In it were found large white, bur, and red oak. No better black walnut trees were to be found anywhere than were found here. Outside of this grove extended great tracts of prairie land noted for their fer- tility. Surrounded by this. Shabbona, the Indian chief, lived and ruled his little kingdom. Plenty surrounded him on all sides. He and his people visited other Indian settlements. of which there were many in northern Illinois. Other chiefs and their people visited him and lived off his substance. His word had much weight in the councils with other chiefs. IIe was one of the great chiefs among the chiefs.
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